UN at site of alleged chemical weapons attack in Syria (VIDEO)

Black columns of smoke rise Sunday from heavy shelling in the Jobar neighborhood, east of Damascus, Syria. Syria reached an agreement with the United Nations on Sunday to allow a U.N. team of experts to visit the site of alleged chemical weapons attacks last week outside Damascus, state media said.
Photo by The Associated Press.

NDN-Video

Major Developments in Syria as Military Strikes Appear Imminent

DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — U.N. experts collected samples and testimony from Syrian doctors and victims of an alleged chemical weapons attack Monday following a treacherous journey through government and rebel-held territory, where their convoy was hit by snipers.

As U.S. officials said there was very little doubt that Syria used chemical weapons and Western powers stepped up calls for swift military action, President Bashar Assad’s government vowed to defend itself against any international attack, warning that such an intervention would ignite turmoil across the region.

It also would bring the U.S. closer to a conflict that has killed more than 100,000 people since Assad cracked down on Arab Spring-inspired protesters in March 2011.

Syria’s civil war has been increasingly defined by sectarian killings between the Sunni-led rebellion and Assad’s regime, dominated by Alawites, an offshoot of Shiite Islam.

It would essentially pit the U.S. and regional allies Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar in a proxy war against Iran, which is providing weapons to the Syrian government’s counterinsurgency, along with Hezbollah, the militant Lebanese group that also has aided Assad’s forces militarily.

Deputy Foreign Minister Faysal Mikdad told The Associated Press in an interview in Damascus that such an attack would trigger “chaos in the entire world.”

“If individual countries want to pursue aggressive and adventurous policies, the natural answer ... would be that Syria, which has been fighting against terrorism for almost three years, will also defend itself against any international attack,” he added.

Assad told a Russian newspaper that any military campaign against his country was destined to fail.

It’s also unclear what U.S. action would mean for relations with Russia, which warned Monday against the use of force not sanctioned by the U.N. Security Council, calling it “a crude violation of international law.”

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said chemical weapons were used in Syria and he accused Assad’s regime of destroying evidence. He said the U.S. has additional information about the attack and will make it public in the days ahead.

“The indiscriminate slaughter of civilians, the killing of women and children and innocent bystanders by chemical weapons is a moral obscenity. By any standard, it is inexcusable and — despite the excuses and equivocations that some have manufactured — it is undeniable,” said Kerry, the highest-ranking U.S. official to confirm the attack.

“This international norm cannot be violated without consequences,” he said.

Assad has denied launching a chemical attack, blaming the rebels instead, and has authorized a U.N. team of experts currently in Syria to investigate, although the U.S. said it was a step that came “too late to be credible.”

Snipers opened fire on the U.N. convoy, hitting one of the vehicles carrying a team on its way to investigate the Aug. 21 incident.

Martin Nesirky, a spokesman for U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, said one of the U.N. vehicles was “deliberately shot at multiple times” in the buffer zone between rebel- and government-controlled territory, adding that the team was safe.